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Toronto Mayor John Tory and his Chicago counterpart are vowing to keep the Great Lakes healthy and fight climate change, despite U.S. President Donald Trump.

Tory said in an interview from Chicago that his Wednesday meeting with Rahm Emanuel cemented their intention to fight the Trump administration’s proposed slashing of federal cash to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The initiative funds efforts against invasive species, algae blooms and pollution hot spots.

“When I was a young boy you would be enthusiastically dissuaded from swimming in Lake Ontario, but today you can” often swim off Toronto’s shore, Tory said, noting Emanuel reminisced of his boyhood swims past dead fish in a then-polluted Lake Michigan.

“We don’t want to go backwards on that and (cutting $300 million) would take us backwards in terms of a big contribution,” to cross-border efforts.

Tory said he, Emanuel and Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre plan to do some more work on their joint position and sign a resolution when the trio gather in Montreal at an international economic conference later this month.

The pair also talked about Trump’s vow to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement — Tory said he noted Illinois has $42 billion worth of trade with Canada and 300,000 jobs at stake — as well as the president’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate-change agreement.

Emanuel, a Democrat and ex-chief of staff to then-president Barack Obama, announced at the start of the global cities forum that Chicago will adopt the Paris guidelines no matter Trump’s position. The agreement commits members to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and limit global temperature rise, to 2C above pre-industrial levels.

The mayor reaffirmed he will vote in favour of TransformTO at July’s council meeting but added he doesn’t know the rules for federal and provincial funds the city will be able to tap, and he wants to “prioritize” which initiatives council adopts first that will reduce the most greenhouse gases in the shortest timeframe.

The plan calls for spending — $6.7 million next year alone — but promises big payback in terms of new jobs, better housing, flood-protection and more.

“I can’t think of one (TransformTO initiative) that I’d say ‘You shouldn’t do that,’” Tory said, “but you do sometimes have to make choices about what you do at what time...

“To me it’s just a businesslike, by which I mean a sensible, rational approach to make sure you do this well, and you do it in some kind of way to make it successful.”

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